Those who ordered Berta Cáceres murder must be held to account, not just the triggermen

Arrests
made in connection with the murder of Honduran environmental activist Berta
Cáceres are a positive step, but only an independent investigation will deliver
justice, says Global Witness.

Four men have been arrested over Cáceres’ killing, two months
after she was shot dead in her home. Cáceres was awarded the 2015 Goldman
Environmental Prize for her decade-long opposition to the ruinous impacts of the
Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on her community’s land.

“The people
who ordered Berta
Cáceres’ murder must be held to account, not just the triggermen,” said Billy Kyte,
campaigner at Global Witness. “So far the Honduran-led investigation has been a
tragedy of errors – with false accusations, suspected cover-ups, and a brazen
conflict of interest at the public prosecutor’s office. The Honduran authorities
are too compromised to be trusted to put the intellectual authors of her
killing behind bars. What’s needed is an independent investigation led by the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.”

Two of
the detainees are linked to the Honduran company building the dam, Desarrollos
Energéticos SA, or DESA - Ramón Rodriguez, an engineer, and Douglas Geovanny
Bustillo, the company’s former head of security. Cáceres reportedly told the
authorities that both men had made threats against her life. (1) The other two suspects,
Mariano Díaz Chávez and Edison Atilio Duarte Meza, both have ties to the
Honduran armed forces.

The Honduran
government is coming under mounting pressure to allow an independent
international investigation into Cáceres’ murder, amid widespread claims of domestic political
interference.

Cáceres’ family revealed a glaring conflict
of interest in that an official involved in the investigation had previously
represented DESA against Cáceres and her
indigenous organisation COPINH. (2)

Police initially said they thought that Cáceres had been killed in a botched robbery attempt. Shortly
afterwards, friends and colleagues at COPINH were brought in for
questioning without any evidence linking them to the crime. Mexican activist
Gustavo Castro - the sole witness to the shooting – claimed that the murder
scene was tampered with, (3) and Cáceres’ family say their lawyers were denied
access to a complete autopsy report. (4)

The
activist had reported 33 death threats linked to her campaign (5). The
Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) had requested emergency
protection measures, which Cáceres’ said the Honduran state never provided.

As the
activist’s youngest daughter, Laura Cáceres, told the Guardian, “The Honduran
state is too closely linked to the murder of my mother to carry out an
independent investigation. It is the government who awarded the dam commission
and the government who sent military and police to work with Desa’s private
security guards, who threatened my mother.” (6)

Cáceres
helped expose the acute vulnerability of environmental activists in Honduras,
the world’s most dangerous country per capita to be one. According to Global
Witness research at least
109 were killed in the country between 2010 and 2015, linked to a surge in
destructive dam, mining and agribusiness projects. (7)

“Berta
Cáceres’
murder was not
an isolated incident – it was just one of a systematic assault on Honduran communities
who dare to take a stand against the industrialisation of their land,” said
Billy Kyte. “Activists are being shot dead in broad daylight, attacked, or threatened
for asserting their rights to their land and a healthy environment. Urgent
action is needed to protect those in the firing line, and bring perpetrators to
justice.”

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(2)
According to her family one of those responsible for denying basic information
around Cáceres’ case is Honduras’ Director of Public Attorneys, Jose Arturo
Duarte, who represented the dam company DESA in past legal actions against
Cáceres’ organisation COPINH. It was only after Cáceres’ family’s lawyers
revealed this conflict of interest very recently that the public prosecutor
stepped down from the case.